Choose a mentor who has the following qualities:

• Interested in developing your career 
• Commitment to your emotional needs
  • Do you need more support and praise or more challenges?
• Match with your professional needs
  • Help with writing?  Methodological skills?
  • Research/scholarly/clinical interests
• A successful track record
• Good communication skills
• Will provide networking opportunities
• Is institutionally savvy
• Expresses interest in you as a person
• There is potential for reciprocity

A good mentor possesses the following characteristics:

Competence

• Professional knowledge and experience
• Respect
• Interpersonal skills and good judgment

Confidence

• Shares network of contacts and resources
• Allows protege to develop his/her own terms
• Demonstrates initiative, takes risks
• Shares credit

Commitment

• Invests time, energy and efforts to mentoring
• Shares personal experience

• Interact with respect and professionalism
• Build trust by articulating and fulfilling expectations
• Engage in partnership building activities and exchange of learning rather than one-way advice
• Build mentee’s sense of self-efficac
• Time management
  • Set a schedule of meetings (e.g., monthly, twice a semester)
  • Co-develop an agenda for each meeting
  • Discuss a time frame for relationship closure/ renewal